Tampa Bay is gearing up to host a record fourth NCAA Women’s Final Four.
First in 2008, then 2015, again in 2019, and now 2025, Tampa will host some of the best female college basketball players — and their passionate fans — at Amalie Arena.
Two national semifinal games will be played on April 4. The championship game will be played April 6. Pregame festivities and events begin April 3.
“The level of the game in every sport has been elevated so much by these women,” former college athlete and current Tampa mayor Jane Castor said Tuesday.
Castor joined representatives from Visit Tampa Bay, the NCAA, ESPN, and others Tuesday to talk about the four-day event and the tens of thousands of fans it’s expected to draw.
According to the NCAA, the 2024 Women’s Final Four saw a record number of people in the stands and a record number of people watching the basketball games on TV. Additionally, more people watched the women’s championship game than the men’s title game for the first time ever, the NCAA added.
“We’ve seen the dramatic rise of the sport over the last few years,” Visit Tampa Bay president Santiago Corrada said. “This one will be a record setter in all ways.”
Big picture view:
Consider what the 2024 Women’s Final Four did in Ohio: According to the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, the event generated an estimated $32.9 million in “direct spend.”
“It’s always projected in the millions, if not tens of millions,” Corrada said of this year’s potential economic impact, a number that won’t be available until after the event. “So we’ll see how we do this time.”
Local perspective:
We’ve asked Visit Tampa Bay for economic impact data from the 2019 Women’s Final Four, which is the last time Tampa hosted the event. According to the organization, downtown hotels were close to full occupancy for the 2019 event.
Weather is undoubtably a draw in making Tampa an attractive host, but the Tampa Bay Sports Commission points out that the area has plenty else to offer, too.
“It’s the experience we can create between the walkability, the great venue we have in Amalie Arena, all of the different ancillary event venues to our hotels, our volunteers, everything in between,” Tampa Bay Sports Commission executive director Rob Higgins said.
Hosting an event like the Women’s Final Four takes years of planning. And with repeated success, Tampa is looking to cement itself as a leading host in just about any sport.
“Whether it was the match with Messi just a couple of weeks ago to the Savannah Bananas playing their first ever NFL stadium game in a few weeks to our record for the NCAA Women’s Final Four team, Tampa Bay has a great hot streak going here,” Higgins added. “We’re not going to stop anytime soon.”
While 2025 marks the first Women’s Final Four post-Caitlin Clark craze, officials pointed to other big names still in the sport – JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers, to name a few – and other well-known teams with passionate fan bases that continue to grow this sport.
